Boy sees explosion doing the hustle

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 5/20/2003 3:41:48 PM Eastern Standard Time,
editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM writes:

> 1) So, I have watched [this television show] on and off for quite a
> while, responding to the concerns of fellow parents when I can that
> this program gives young women permission to voice.
>
> 2) I am deeply aware of my responsibility to pass permission to
> voice, on to the
> next generation of young women.
>

The writer quoted here should be subjected to a substantial dose of
proscriptive grammar, in the hopes that she (he?) will learn to avoid
dangling modifiers and write unambiguous sentences.  For example, in 1) it is
not possible to determine whether the program or the writer is "responding".
However, it is possible to decypher enough of the sentence to determine that
"voice" here is being used in the transitive sense, "permission to voice the
concerns of [fellow] parents".

While the thread "PSAT glitch" has provided examples of ill-advised
proscriptions, still one must admit that the ultimate goal of proscriptivism
(proscriptionism?) is to all one to avoid ambiguity and "say what one means".
 The now-you-see-it-now-you-don't rule about genitive antecedents almost
certainly arose from someone who had trouble decyphering genitive antecedents
and decided to rule them out as potentially ambiguous.

           - Jim Landau